


victory

by Smellslikezombies



Category: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Boys Kissing, Confessions, First Kiss, Love Confessions, M/M, if you couldnt tell, the new ep fucked me up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29750007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smellslikezombies/pseuds/Smellslikezombies
Summary: “I didn’t win.” Langa sounds resolute, and his eyebrows furrow in the adorable way they do when he’s determined. He had that expression every time he tried to pop an ollie and failed. Reki replays the memory of that expression breaking into a grin when he’d finally managed to complete the move every night when he can’t sleep because he hasn’t gotten his goodnight text from Langa.“Miya told me you won. Even sent a picture.”“I didn’t,” Langa repeats, and he throws down his board with a deafening clatter in the silent skate park. He sits unbearably close to Reki with his long legs crossing over Reki’s board, practically trapping his ex best friend between his thighs as he rests them on the deck. “You weren’t there, so I didn’t win the tournament. Not without you.”
Relationships: Hasegawa Langa/Kyan Reki
Comments: 27
Kudos: 476





	victory

**Author's Note:**

> SO HOW BOUT THAT, RENGA NATION???? EP 8??????????????????????? 
> 
> literally kill me, also if you're asking why i write so many confession fics, no you're not.

The skate park he sits at is empty, and it should be eerie because of the streetlamps just barely bright enough to illuminate a small radius of cement below them, and because of the way the wheels of Reki’s board echo in the bowl as he skates. 

_Down. Across. Sideways up the side. Up. Jump. Small spin. Land. Stabilize. Down._

The motions are there, but the skate park is empty, and Reki knows that the only reason he feels so cold is because the sun isn’t out. 

Langa isn’t out. 

He’s not there at the half-pipe, glancing at Reki every few seconds to make sure his best friend is watching. He’s not there with Reki in the bowl, showing off his fancy snowboarding tricks adapted for wheels. He’s not there sitting against the gate next to Reki, peeling off pieces of a tangerine that would make his hands smell like citrus for the rest of the day. Langa isn’t _there_ , and Reki feels the ache all the way in his bones, and it makes him nearly slip and fall off his board many more times than usual. 

He tries to tell himself that it’s a sign when he’s able to recover; he doesn’t need Langa, or Joe, or Cherry, or _anyone_ to help him with anything. He’s fine on his own, and that’s fine with him. 

He sighs as he sits on his board, rolling himself with his feet a little and thumping his head against the chain link fence to make the metal shake. He can’t fool anyone, much less himself, that he’s fine without Langa. But Langa isn’t here, and Reki is the reason why, and he needs to force himself to get over it at this point. 

When he checks his phone, he reads over the messages sent before the day in the rain, full of inside jokes and teasing about Langa’s Japanese. He’d been getting better at speaking it because of all the conversations he had with Reki and the other S skaters, but his writing still needed some work. 

Now, Reki doesn’t know anything about Langa. Not anymore. Not since _Adam._

Reki’s headband slips into his eyes when he hits his head against the fence again, blinding him for a brief moment that he lets linger. At the sound of footsteps, he pushes it down, so his hair falls into his eyes and the headband is looped around his neck. He keeps his eyes closed until the steps are closer, uncaring of who it is. Maybe, if he’s killed by a random stranger in the street, Langa will forget about him entirely, and he’ll be able to skate better without the annoying shadow. 

“Reki?” Langa’s voice is sweet and timid, as it always is, but there’s an extra layer of hesitancy there, and when Reki finally opens his eyes, he sees Langa with his board under his arm, the yeti far too playful for the tension that settles between them. Langa makes a small sound when he sees Reki is watching him, but he stays quiet otherwise. It’s clear to Reki that he’s setting their conversation on Reki’s shoulders, allowing the topic and tone to fall in Reki’s opinion. It’s endearing, and Reki finds himself flushing despite the situation he basically created between them. 

“Langa,” he says, and Langa freezes, as if he wasn’t expecting a response. His eyes are wide, and it’s obvious he doesn’t know what to say, so Reki relieves him of the burden. “You won.”

He’s referring to the tournament; Miya sent him a single picture of Langa crossing the finish line, but the skater’s face was tired and bored. He ignored the gloved hand reaching out for him, just over his shoulder, and the thought of Adam advancing on Langa but being completely dismissed makes Reki happier than he’d like to admit. 

“I didn’t win.” Langa sounds resolute, and his eyebrows furrow in the adorable way they do when he’s determined. He had that expression every time he tried to pop an ollie and failed. Reki replays the memory of that expression breaking into a grin when he’d finally managed to complete the move every night when he can’t sleep because he hasn’t gotten his goodnight text from Langa. 

“Miya told me you won. Even sent a picture.” Reki can feel an argument bubbling up, and for some reason, he wants to fuel it. It’ll make him feel something other than regret and misery at the thought of Langa no longer being his best friend. Deep down, he knows there’s something else, but those are only feelings he can confront when he’s alone in his room, watching the old skating videos until his vision blurs and he’s gasping for air as tears roll hot down his cheeks. “You won.”

“I didn’t,” Langa repeats, and he throws down his board with a deafening clatter in the silent skate park. He sits unbearably close to Reki with his long legs crossing over Reki’s board, practically trapping his ex best friend between his thighs as he rests them on the deck. “You weren’t there, so I didn’t win the tournament. Not without you.”

“But Adam--” Reki starts, because yeah, Reki might be the reason Langa _started_ skating, but Adam’s the reason Langa stayed. He’s the reason Langa loved it. He’s the reason Langa ever got so good. He’s the driving force behind Langa’s rapid success, and he’s why Reki could never hope to match Langa. Their goals don’t match up anymore, and Reki is _fine_ with that. He’s _fine_ with Langa skating against Adam and breaking their promise. He’s _fine_ with it because Langa isn’t his friend anymore, so it doesn’t matter. Langa can do what he wants now, without Shitty Skater Reki holding him back. 

Langa’s hands land on Reki’s knees, interrupting Reki’s argument as he leaned forward. Reki sits cross-legged on his board, so there isn’t much keeping them apart with how close Langa is sitting. “I don’t skate for Adam. He has nothing to do with this anymore.”

Those two strands of Langa’s hair fall on either side of his nose, and Reki has the strong urge to push them out of the way. He silently quashes it down. “He has everything to do with this. He’s the reason you broke your promise to me.”

Reki can feel his anger in his gut, molten lava bubbling and threatening to blow. Why is Langa not angry with Reki? Why is Langa denying the obvious facts about Adam? _Why does Langa not love Reki as much as Reki loves Langa?_

“He was at the beginning,” Langa admits, having the decency to look guilty about the promise he broke. Reki tells himself it’s not genuine, but he’s known Langa so well now, and it’s hard to deny that he hasn’t studied and mastered the meaning behind every eyebrow twitch, every small frown, every blink that flits across Langa’s face. He’s a self-proclaimed Langa expert; he knows Langa better than he knows skateboarding, or board engineering. Perhaps that’s why he fell so hard for Langa. It’s hard not to fall in love with the person who practically became your reason for living. “But not anymore.” Langa’s voice is quiet, still, and it’s suddenly a cool wave that washes over Reki. It calms his anger, because he finally lets himself believe Langa, and with that cool blue meeting fiery brown comes tears, welling up in both their eyes. 

“What...What is it about, then?” Reki asks, because he wants to hear the honest answer that will make his heart beat faster and his palms sweat and his cheeks flush. 

“After qualifiers, I realized something.” The topic feels like a total gear shift, a random ball from left field, but Reki lets Langa continue, because that’s what you do when you’re in love. You let them continue when they need to say something, and you interrupt them when they’re being stupid. “My heart wasn’t beating for Adam. It wasn’t beating for skateboarding, or snowboarding, or even my dad.” Langa swallows heavily, and he looks away for a second before returning his gaze to Reki, and Reki knows what Langa’s going to say next, but his breath hitches anyway. “It beats for you.”

“Langa…” Reki says, and he realizes that he’s been leaning forward all this time, as if trying to keep the proximity of the confession within their own personal bubbles that now overlapped. His breathing is also blocked now, because he’s really crying, with tears that taste salty as they run into his mouth and a nose that he refuses to sniff with because he doesn’t want to be gross in front of his crush, even though he’s done far worse things in front of Langa before. Langa looks a little worried, all of a sudden, and his eyes flit away for a second. 

“Did that...come across right? I said it right, right?” 

Reki can’t help himself; Langa is just too cute and unassuming, and Reki lets out a loud laugh that reverberates down into the bowl, bounces off the half-pipe, and travels down the street. Reki thinks that it’s simultaneously too loud and too quiet. He wants the world to know that Langa is in love with him, but he also wants to keep Langa all to himself, hugging him close as they sit in each others’ rooms watching skate highlights and holding hands as they ride together through the streets of Japan. When his head is tilted back forward and he composes himself enough to actually see semi-clearly, Langa looks surprised, and a little confused, and the expression paired with the tension that’s rapidly dissipating is all so silly that Reki nearly loses it again. 

“Are you...You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”

“No, no!” Reki hurries to correct, because Langa looks like a kicked puppy, and it’s making his heart ache. “I just...you’re really cute. I’ve always thought so. So hearing that makes me happy.”

Langa goes back to looking like a normal puppy, one that’s being offered a treat after completing a trick, and he leans forward even more with his hands keeping Reki’s board steady. “That means you’re not disappointed in me anymore?”

“I…” Reki starts, because that’s not exactly it. “I’m still mad you broke our promise, but...it was wrong of me to hold you back.” 

“Hold me back?” Langa’s eyes are searching until he realizes that Reki seriously believes that, and suddenly his hands are cupping Reki’s cheeks and forcing them to face each other. “You’ve never held me back. You’re the reason I’m so happy.” 

Not _successful._ Not _talented._ Not _good at skating._

_Happy._

Reki feels like he’s going to cry again, and Langa seems to sense it because his thumbs gently rub under Reki’s already red eyes. “Do I make you happy, Reki?” The question is vulnerable and open, and Reki knows that no matter what he answers, Langa will be satisfied.

“You make me the happiest, Langa.” Reki offers a large smile that rivals Langa’s, and he nearly laughs at how weird they must look, two boys sitting on skateboards in an empty skate park in the dead of night smiling at each other. Still, he has Langa, and Langa is happy, so he doesn’t really care too much about how they look. 

“Reki...I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long.” Despite this entire conversation being about their love for each other, at least between the lines, Reki is still surprised with the bluntness of the confession, as well as the obvious flicking of Langa’s gaze toward Reki’s now parted lips from his small gasp of surprise. “Can I--”

“Yes.”

Kissing Langa is very new. Everything about the situation is new, because both Reki and Langa have never kissed anyone before, so it’s wet and weird and there’s too much teeth and a little too much tongue for so early in the game because both of their lips were parted when they started. Still, Reki loses himself in it, yet also finds himself in it, because he could never imagine himself apart from Langa, but he could also never imagine being as dependent as he used to be on his best-friend-now-something-more. They’re two halves of the same pipe, as stupid as it sounds. 

At the same time, Reki feels the weirdest sense of deja vu from kissing Langa, most likely because he’s imagined it so many times that sometimes he would be surprised when Langa didn’t immediately kiss him in the mornings before their fight. Langa, despite being a recent addition to Reki’s life, has a presence that makes him feel like they’ve known each other since birth, and the feeling of Langa’s lips slowly exploring and tasting and learning the feel of Reki’s own makes him happy they’re not standing, because Reki would’ve collapsed by now. 

A car driving by makes Langa break apart from Reki out of surprise, because like Reki, he forgot they’re not the only two people in the world. They both pant from being connected so long, but Reki appreciates the burning in his lungs because it reminds him this is _real._ Langa is here in front of him, blushing and messy and with lips kiss-swollen because he loves Reki and could barely stand to keep it in any longer. 

“I won,” Langa says, after a beat of silence and staring into each other’s eyes as they catch their breath. 

“I’ll take you to a victory dinner,” Reki promises, and he means it as a date, and they both know he does because they smile at each other almost bashfully. Langa checks the time and cocks his head. 

“But it’s almost two in the morning.”

“Tomorrow, obviously!” Reki begins to laugh at Langa’s obliviousness, but it’s cut off when Langa loops a finger into his headband and tugs him closer, their lips brushing. 

“You mean _today._ ” 

“You are…” Reki trails off, shaking his head and biting back a smile as Langa kisses him again. And again. And again. 

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed this!! if you did, don't forget to comment and kudos for our skater boys who aren't saying see you later boy<3


End file.
